It is possible that this brief text, now an autonomous extrageneric fragment, was
scissored from a letter- or poem-draft since lost, destroyed, or beyond positive
identification. Two stray marks along the torn top edge of the paper indicate that
text has been lost, though whether from the opening of the extant text or from
another, discrete composition remains unknown. The author of the tears has not
been identified; they may be the work of a censor or of Dickinson herself.